


Boxed Step

by OrionLady



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domesticity, Epic Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Healing, Male-Female Friendship, Old Friends, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Trauma, aftermath of war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 20:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionLady/pseuds/OrionLady
Summary: War is over and Harry can’t remember what he’s supposed to do. A story of three steps, lilies, and gaudy sweaters.Or: How Harry and Luna Learn to Want to Live Again.





	Boxed Step

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this during a Not Good Time and it shows. Read with self care and caution, friends.

Somehow the dust is comforting. Like the rubble is already a mausoleum, a boring essay assignment for history students. Nobody has bothered to clean it up. Well, apart from Filch’s meager but diligent effort.

And Harry stands alone.

Pewter sunlight shafts through cracked walls. It gives his unkempt hair the look of an old man. All at once, so soft Harry feels it before he sees it, rain drizzles over the wreckage of his old school. A home that stopped being home long before men in black hoods destroyed it.

It’s been a month. Funerals attended by the hollow eyes of war stricken mourners. Arrangements made. It has seemed, to Harry, very busy and barren at the same time.

Now there is the strange, stale air of a transient space.

So he stands.

He came early, knowing no one would disturb him. Harry cannot cry like Hermione, does not throw plates like Ron.

So he stands.

The three of them have been living in the Burrow. Taking solace in the only people who truly understand. Only…there is an empty room in Harry’s house of grief. One neither Hermione nor Ron seems to have. It leaves him disconnected.

Rain flutters off his soggy sweater cuffs. Then the dripping sound flutes into a _plat, plat, plat. _Bare feet on stone. Harry glances up.

Luna stands to his left, purple shirt and all. She’s in the same clothes as the battle. The day the war ended. Harry shuffles in place at Luna’s placid look. His lips fumble over an excuse before he trails off, for he respects her too much to lie.

She looks gaunt but resigned. Calm like the morning rain.

So they stand. Harry and Luna.

“This living business is awfully hard,” says Luna.

Harry nods. “I came here, hoping I’d remember how.”

_How to _want _to live_.

Luna comes closer so that she’s at his elbow, as if she heard his words anyway.

“That’s easy,” says Luna. “It’s just like a three step.”

At Harry’s blank look, her lips twitch, and Harry realizes she’s trying to smile.

“You know?” she prods in her breathy voice. “Like a box step?”

Her eyes are bright but in the kind of way that makes one worried, the way of someone terminally ill. Harry frowns. The faint smell of fire still clings to her stained clothes…he realizes she _hasn’t_ changed since the battle. At least her hair has been washed, beach sand ripples of gold even in the overcast light.

“I think boxes are my problem,” says Harry.

Luna just gazes at broken arches high above.

* * *

The lights are dazzling. A hover charm keeps them bobbing in the tent’s balmy air. Every few minutes, they shift colors, pastels to match the summer wedding party. Food is stacked taller than blushing groom Ron. He and Hermione have their first dance and then old friends join them on the floor.

Gentle breezes, cooled by evening, play with Harry’s hair where he sits at the head table. The rest of the bridal party drags a partner out. Harry claps along. Ron and Hermione waited two years after the Battle to be wed, and Harry’s determined to savour it.

_They deserve every second._

“Care to help me find some dandelions for the happy couple?”

Harry starts. Luna sways at his side, unperturbed by Harry’s alertness. She has a gauzy lavender frock on now. But underneath her ruffled skirts, Harry spots the dirty short trousers she still refuses to part with for long. They’ve been washed. Certain blood and soot splotches, however, haven’t come out.

Harry’s heart pangs.

The words catch up with him. “Oh. Sure. I’d love to.”

They wander outside. In the open air, music distant, Harry breathes properly. Fireflies loop in lazy shapes around the cool grass at their feet. Luna makes Harry take his shoes off too.

They pluck yellow dandelions in silence. Luna hums, but her voice is scratchy. Harry notices the hungry shadows in the scars along her collarbone but doesn’t comment. Harry doesn’t enjoy food anymore either. He finds the whole thing odd and hazy: he doesn’t have nightmares, like he expected, no anger or depressed mood swings like everyone warns him about.

Instead, he is a failed soufflé. Filled with the same ingredients. But deflated. Airy and unreal at the edges.

“Harry?” comes Luna’s soft voice.

Harry visibly shakes himself. He sees a wad of crushes flowers in his trembling grip. “So, why dandelions? I’ve never heard of presenting a bouquet of dandelions to newlyweds.”

“They are one of the most resilient blossoms in the world. They can survive anything.”

Harry can’t argue with that.

“Besides,” she adds, “when they dry out, Ron and Hermione can make a wish on the seeds.”

The band slows to a plucked waltz. Luna holds his hands.

“Oh no,” says Harry. “I can’t dance.”

“You did just find at the Yule Ball.” She makes a “frame” with their arms. “See? There you go. Back two three, side two three…”

And suddenly they are dancing, a sloppy, awful thing with wobbly lines and Harry thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He smiles, a real one that crinkles his eyes.

It turns into a hiccup. A buildup of something woolen in his chest, crawling up his throat.

_You’re so stupid_, Harry berates himself. _Can’t even experience joy without it peaking into agony and grief and unseeing eyes and the lights of battle fire and…_

“The secret I have found,” Luna whispers, drawing Harry close, “is to take the dance one step at a time.”

Harry buries his eyes in her shoulder, rocked with shudders, and cups his friend’s head when a wet patch blossoms just above his heart. Still they keep dancing. Keep the tired three-step.

Then Luna pulls away, hand in Harry’s.

They stand until the stars come out and the moon is high. Everyone has offered Harry boxes—auror offices, new houses, a dorm room, classrooms to teach in, therapist’s offices, waiting areas, train compartments. He’s turned them all down.

Luna closes her eyes.

“Yeah,” says Harry. “It’s open here.”

Harry links his arms and they go inside. Ron and Hermione meet them with open arms. Then Luna hands Hermione the dandelion bouquet, tied with a wide blue ribbon.

It is suddenly Hermione who’s crying. Luna pats her back while Hermione chokes out, “You’re all here.”

“Yes we are,” says Luna.

“Alive and—here! Thank you!”

Neville joins the huddle and Harry opens the door to that secret room in his heart, just a little. Luna turns her weary, assured eyes on Harry. She squeezes his hand and his heart pangs again.

* * *

He buys a square house. Well, the modest bungalow on the outskirts of town is really more of a rectangle, but Harry’s just glad it’s not the five floor mansion the Ministry threatened to buy him.

Harry and Ginny marry not a year after Ron and Hermione. It is a small, private affair that suits everyone. Their life is quiet. He comes to treasure the sound of Ginny humming while getting dressed. The burble of a tea kettle. He doesn’t miss her pensive glances, though. The sniffles on days he can’t sleep or won’t get out of bed.

Harry wonders if this is supposed to be the happy ending. The blissful future everyone imagined after the war. Harry doesn’t feel happy. He doesn’t feel _anything_. The numb, the wall paste flavour coating his tongue is nice but lonely. Even with Ginny. Harry realizes she hasn’t seen inside that room either.

It is five months after they’ve settled that Harry comes up behind his wife and kisses her on the cheek with a noisy ‘shmack.’ She turns from her bacon on the stove.

“Honey?”

“I’m going to work today!” Harry announces.

“A job?” Relief floods Ginny’s eyes. “Where?”

Harry just winks.

“Well,” says Ginny, handing him a sandwich from the fridge, “I hope you have a wonderful first day.”

Harry puts the BLT in his jacket pocket and walks down his street. At the dead end roundabout is a dark, lush forest, one of the main reasons he’d chosen this house. It looks grumpy and reminds him of Snape.

Harry doesn’t have to work a day in his life if he doesn’t wish to. His parents’ vault and Sirius’ estate—an enormous sum—have been left solely to Harry. But he needs to escape rectangles for a while.

So he walks.

He meanders over logs and through mossy overhangs. He stretches out on his back to stare up at birds with oily wings. An airplane purrs, slicing through meringue clouds overhead.

A scream jolts him from sleep.

Harry darts up and swivels in a frantic circle. After several tripping heartbeats, he recognizes that the scream was his own. He wishes he could remember what he’s been dreaming.

The sky is dusky. He wanders home and collapses into bed beside Ginny, fully clothed. She’s asleep and red wisps make angel wings on her cheek. Nauseous, Harry closes his eyes and waits for the sun to come up.

* * *

The third day of this, a pair of bare fall in step with him. Harry says nothing while they turn off for the forest. The ache in his bones promises rain but the sky beams sunshine.

So they walk.

Luna still hasn’t changed. For a moment, gazing at her clothes, Harry’s back on the battlefield.

He sighs.

They collect acorns and beautiful rocks. At lunch, he tears the mushed BLT sandwich in half. Luna munches while dipping her toes in a puddle full of tadpoles. Then, together they hop over fallen trees and giant white boulders.

Luna puts a blue rock in Harry’s palm and closes his fingers over it. He tucks it in his trouser pocket with a faint smile. Luna takes two acorns and then she’s gone.

It’s only as Harry walks home alone that he realizes neither of them said a word all day.

“Good day?” asks Ginny at supper.

Harry hides a goofy smile in his shepherd’s pie. “The best.”

* * *

The next day, the acorns dangle from hooks in Luna’s ears. Harry sees the imprint of a grate on Luna’s cheek and she’s sleepy eyed.

“You quit your reporter job,” says Harry.

“You’re lying to your wife,” says Luna.

Harry bites his lip as they step onto pine needles. “I’m not lying. Technically, this dancing _is _hard work.”

Luna rumbles in her throat. “I moved out of my father’s.”

Harry raises a brow.

“It wasn’t his fault. Nor was it mine,” she explains.

Harry nods. He understands that. The way he feels isn’t Ginny’s fault either.

“Where are you living now?” he asks.

Luna is silent for the duration of their blackberry picking. They fill two paper bags to overflowing.

“It’s different every day, I suppose,” says Luna.

They haven’t spoken for hours and her voice startles Harry. He remembers his earlier question and sits back to better see his friend. Her battle clothes are threadbare, with new stains now that she’s homeless. Her battle never ended.

“I can’t take them off for more than a day or two,” says Luna, though she’s not looking at Harry. “I feel like if I do, it will all be over.”

“Luna,” says Harry. Then he stops. He can’t say it either:

_Luna, it _is _over._

Luna lifts her eyes to afternoon sun through the leaves. “Some species of farwinkles change their wing colour to match those of a member of the clan who has died. They stay that colour for the rest of their lives.”

Harry slips his hand into hers. Together they gaze upwards. If Harry squints just so, he can see narggles and farwinkles between the willow trees.

“Goodnight, Harry.”

Harry waves her off. “Goodnight, Luna. Hope you find somewhere warm to rest your head.”

On his way home, Harry takes a detour to the local department store. His face falls. Everything here comes from a box. Everything is displayed _in _a box.

Discouraged, he trudges back outside and finally it decides to rain. Turning a corner, Harry sees a tiny tween wrestling with her rack of—now wet—patchwork sweaters and butterfly pants. The stitches are mismatched, colourful.

Harry stops to help her pack up. “Did you make these?”

The little girl nods. “I been sellin’ ‘em to pay for sewing camp.”

Harry lights up. “I’ll take five.”

“What?” She drops the display table. “Are you ‘avin me on?”

Harry presents a crisp fold of bills.

The little girl claps. “That’s spiffin’ grand tha’ is! Take the whole lot!”

A laugh threatens to bubble up Harry’s nose. She reminds him at once of Fred.

The next day is Saturday. It surprises Harry to remember weekends still exist, along with the trifling matter of days having names.

So Harry has to wait until Monday. The familiar route squares his shoulders and gets his heart pumping.

So focused, he nearly steps on a green sleeping bag poking out a pile of oak leaves.

“Luna?”

The girl stands and stretches. She is much more rested.

“Good day, Harry Potter.” She glances between the trees. “Or should I say good afternoon?”

Harry smiles and holds out the blocky coloured garments. Luna blinks at them. Her eyes seem cloudy but entirely in the present with him.

“Come on,” Harry whispers. “You’re not leaving them behind. It’s just like waking up from a bad dream.”

Luna strokes the finely knitted sweater. Harry simply holds it out and waits. Then Luna’s fingers tangle in it and she brings it to her nose.

“They smell like someone else.”

“Soon they’ll smell like you,” says Harry.

Luna pushes them away. “Exactly.”

Harry feels like he’s been slapped. He holds the whole bag out again. Without another word, Luna grabs a sweater, trousers, and one of the many undershirts Harry bought on the weekend. She goes behind the eight foot high boulder.

“It’s just another step,” Harry soothes.

For a time there is nothing but the muffled shift of clothes on skin. Then the hustle quiets. Harry’s throat catches.

“Luna?”

She inches into view. The sweater sleeves are too long and the denim trouser cuffs are two different lengths but Harry thinks Luna has never looked more like herself. Luna shivers. When she moves to cover her face with her hands, Harry pulls her into a loose hug.

“Their wings are gone,” she says.

“I know,” Harry replies and suddenly he’s shivering too. “They’re gone.”

“Wh…what colour are we now?” quavers Luna into Harry’s neck.

He swallows harshly. His fingers bunch in the dragonfly decal on the back of her sweater. “I don’t know.”

* * *

A week of this “going to work” passes, then a few more.

At the one month mark, Harry holds up a newspaper article. He’s smiling like a loon and doesn’t much care.

“Painting with one’s toes is a superb technique,” says Luna, munching on snap peas. “I really don’t see the fuss.”

“You’ve got a personal studio and everything! Congratulations.”

Luna merely collects little bits of “future art projects” in the paint apron she wears everywhere. Harry is relieved now that she at least has a space to sleep.

Luna gathers twigs, branches, and birch bark. Luna strikes a match from one of her many smock pockets. The kindling blazes in what feels like an instant to Harry.

“What’s this for?” he asks.

Luna takes out her battle clothes from a grocery bag. “Would you like to do the honour of my trousers?”

Harry stares, then places the clothes on their little pyre. She sits across from him. The fire dwindles between their bodies. Sweater threads shrivel into blackened veins. A blood stain turns to embers. The day darkens. They don’t move until Luna’s clothes and the wood are all gone.

Then it is cold. So they walk.

“Are you alright?” he softly asks.

“Not really,” says Luna. Her lashes meet her skin, snowy spider’s legs. “But the moon is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?”

“Mmm,” says Harry.

“I’m named after the moon, you know.”

One of Luna’s socks is falling down and if Harry squints, he can just make out music notes on one knee high and giraffes on the other.

“I did know that.” Harry smiles. “It reflects the light of the sun.”

“Mmm.” Luna’s eyes are dreamy and it’s the most she has looked like herself since fifth year. “The moon reminds me of a breath mint sometimes.”

Harry chokes on a bottle of water. It splutters up his nose and down his shirt front.

“Careful, Harry,” Luna says, mild. “You must learn to swallow properly or Ginny will never make you lemonade. And then where will you be?”

Harry’s off laughing. He can’t help it. It echoes off the houses and streetlamps, unbridled and shout-like from his mouth. And he thinks _he _hasn’t sounded this much like himself since fifth year. The hollow ache in his bones has moved to his static heart but he doesn’t mind. Not with the laughter fizzing around inside him.

* * *

The signs are small, so innocuous at first.

Ginny lingering at a window display. Volunteering to babysit the neighbor’s kids. The sudden appearance of home and family magazines.

Spring melts into summer before Harry sees the tiny white booties in his wife’s jewelry box and understands. A thousand watt jolt to his drifting psyche.

Harry leaves in the dead of night.

The moon is blushing behind a lace fan of clouds. Harry runs. Runs and runs and runs and runsansrunsandrunsandruns.

A stick is in his hand and he stabs the ground. His thrashing becomes a circle. Circle upon circle upon circle. But circles are closed _too_. Just a box after all, a fancy cage. Harry hexes a nearby pebble for not realizing that either.

When that doesn’t feel like anything, Harry hexes another rock. He’s shaking.

He throws the stick at a tree. Then another one, because he can.

This makes sense, his Ginny wanting kids. The logical progression. He is “living” and doing nothing at all. The Dursleys certainly never gave any frame of reference.

Harry doubles over on his knees. He’s run miles and is in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

“Harry?”

Harry closes his eyes. Opens them again. Still there—a shiny Luna, covered fingernail to neck in cobalt paint.

By the warm glow of a cottage behind her, Harry surmises he’s stumbled upon his friend’s studio home. And destroyed her lawn.

“I do my best painting at night,” she says. “Care for some tea?”

Harry debates a tempting one eighty where he runs off into the night, never heard from again. Luna just stands there.

“You’re not a coward, Harry Potter.” Her voice floats to him on a chilly wind.

Harry, hands on his hips, won’t meet her eye but he nods. She leads him inside.

“I figured something was afoot when two rocks bounced into my house singing Dvorak.”

Harry colours. Luna’s home is all birch wood and lantern light, plush sofas and ivy growing off the ceiling. A cot sits against one wall.

Luna sits Harry down at a table by the stove. The kettle steams.

Harry is suddenly exhausted. He rubs at his eyes and sips the honey tea. He can’t make toast without the machine pop triggering a flashback of fire blasts. Who is he to raise a child?

“That’s easy,” says Luna, as if reading his mind. “It’s just like a three-step.”

Her long hair brushes Harry’s shoulder on the way to her easel.

Harry follows her over. The portraits are all dark colours, stormy seas, black irises, and writhing shapes Harry can’t make out. He doesn’t want to.

Yet Luna’s face is peaceful while she works away.

“Your paintings are so…macabre.”

“That’s the secret,” says Luna. “I leave it on the canvas.”

The stroke of her bare thumbs for tear streaks on her latest portrait’s face is hypnotic. Harry finds himself leaning closer. Something twinges in his chest but he can’t look away.

Harry sinks onto the cot and drinks in Luna’s slowly morphing image until his eyelids droop. He dreams, but it is silent. The screams are far away.

When he wakes, it is light and Luna’s fluttering touch is on his wrist.

“Everything’s prepared,” she murmurs.

Harry doesn’t ask and she doesn’t offer. To his surprise, Luna leads him towards home, then into the forest near his backyard.

Luna comes to a stop. She hands Harry a bag of seeds. It’s a plastic baggy, no markers of any kind.

“What are they?” asks Harry.

Luna sighs. “Plant them and find out.”

So they do.

The weeks fly by for Harry. They till up the mulch into a round flowerbed. One day Harry brings a stone bench and bird bath and the next Luna greets Harry with a potted calla lily under each arm. Together Luna and Harry coax the tender plants from their pot and into the ground.

“There,” says Harry. “One for each of us.”

Luna jerks a bit. “No, Harry. It’s a _lily_. It’s not for you.”

Harry crouches, confused. Luna’s hands are black with soil, a match to his. The earth thrums under his hands, especially when he strokes his lily. The leaves stretch and groan with pleasure. Sometimes he thinks they chatter to each other.

Harry smiles.

“You can thank Neville for these,” Luna adds.

“Are they magical?”

Luna rocks back. “You tell me.”

For the next month, that lily stops the crumbling in Harry’s world. If he closes his eyes while gardening, he forgets cruciatus pain, the ropey marks along Luna’s chest and forearms, the sleepless nights where the dead space in his chest throbs.

Luna hums now. Some days it’s full songs, in Gaelic and other languages he doesn’t know.

“Green things love music,” she says one afternoon. “It helps them grow. Live.”

Harry licks his lips, opens them. No sound comes out. Fixing his gaze on the lily, he tries out a warble. It’s like a dying bird, all croaky and lost, but it makes his throat buzz.

So Harry sings.

Though Luna doesn’t look up, her simple lullaby grows in volume. Harry’s timid voice follows suit. He doesn’t know the words but it’s fine.

At night, for the first time, Harry dreams of fairies between tulips. The flowers perform a ballet, their petals a synchronized arabesque.

So each day Luna and Harry sing.

Their dance fumbles sometimes. Yet Luna’s melodic breaths and her smell of eucalyptus and acrylic soothes Harry. Ginny now talks openly about children and so long as Harry keeps his shaking fingers buried in the dirt, all is well.

One morning, Harry comes early to examine the blossoms, pride in his chest.

His breath catches:

The lily is…the lily is…

“No!” Harry slides to his knees and cradles the broken stalk, its muddied petals. “No!”

His chest is heaving and he can’t feel his legs and dry sobs assault his spinning vision. Suddenly an arm is there, kneeling beside him. It tugs him to a chest that smells of dandelions. Harry’s body gives a mighty jerk and he distantly realizes his face is wet. He doesn’t even have the strength to cling, just hangs limp in the arms.

He experiences the rarest and most painful sort of cry that exists:

The All of it Cry.

Harry doesn’t know if he’s crying for his mum or Sirius or Cedric or Tom Riddle’s abuse or his own or Colin and his stupid camera or a white bearded man or a potion master’s innocence lost or all of it, everything at once.

When the next sob wrenches Harry’s gut, he feels he’s crying for the beginning of the world up until his precious lily. The children without love, the injustice, the petals trampled underfoot. It feels like so much that it feels like nothing.

Harry realizes he hasn’t cried since fifth year either.

“I killed it.” The words are raw and jagged.

“No, Harry,” rumbles the chest under his forehead. “A deer probably just came by and trotted over it.”

Harry wails.

“Harry,” Luna whispers. “They’re _not_ _gone_.”

Harry worries she’s about to sell some crap about people living on his heart, but she simply strokes his back and says, voice broken,

“We have daymares about them. Wearing shirts stained with their blood. Keeping them with us. They need to be gone. Let _go_, Harry.”

Something in Harry cracks and he’s crying again. And this pain is sharp, blistering. It’s been almost four years but Harry is still there, kneeling amidst a wreath of dead.

At once, he and Luna feel like the only ones alive.

Luna rocks them back and forth. That suddenly feels real too. The motion is desperate and Harry finally wraps his leaden arms around Luna.

They rock and weep, surrounded by flowers. Over Luna’s shoulder, Harry sees the paint stained tips of her hair and the sight calms him. They don’t move for hours.

The first sensation to register is cold soil under Harry’s knees. Then Luna’s eyelashes on his cheek in wet brush strokes. She pulls away, never letting go of his hand.

With her free hand, she plucks the untouched calla lily and threads it through Harry’s button hole. The sun is halfway setting before the pair find their feet and walk back, fingers still interlocked. Luna kisses Harry on the cheek goodbye. She disappears in a breath of wind.

Ginny stands in the open door of their patio, arms folded.

“Ginny!” Harry stops.

“The Auror’s Office called,” says his wife. “You’re doing a wonderful job on that new security system!”

Harry splutters for a moment before seeing his wife’s silent mirth.

“Harry,” Ginny scolds, “do you really think I don’t know you and Luna have been meeting in the woods for months?”

He clutches her hands. “It’s not what you think…I would never…”

Ginny’s eyes narrow, impossibly soft. “Do you know why I married you, Mr. Potter?”

_Because I’m the Chosen One?_

Ginny shakes her head. Apparently she can read minds too. “Because you’re the most loyal man I know. Luna is a dear friend and you don’t have to lie to me to spend time with her. I’m not jealous—I just wish you had told me.”

“I promise,” says Harry, “no more secrets.”

He tucks the lily behind her ear.

“I…I’m sorry I’ve been so afraid of starting a family,” says Harry. “I’m ready now.”

“I hope so.” Ginny’s hand drifts to her stomach. “Because we’re in bloom.”

Harry blinks. He stands in place, walks over, and kisses his wife. And Harry thinks maybe he’s gotten the hang of this dancing thing.

* * *

Harry takes his wife and children to the garden in the woods many times. Even muggles understand it is an enchanted place.

Every year on the anniversary of the war’s end, Harry slips away early in the morning. He can be seen walking with a blond woman wearing no shoes and acorn earrings. Sometimes Neville, Luna, Ron, Hermione, and the old gang will share a meal under the stars, but always Harry and Luna spend a few hours alone.

“Auntie Lunes” becomes a favourite, particularly the year she gives Ginny pixies for Christmas. Harry three-steps all the way to sun spotted hands, sore knees, and grandkids. At his fifty-fifth birthday, he feels full, like he’s eaten a banquet all by himself.

On the eve of his eightieth birthday, he realizes the private room in his heart is _cluttered_.

Cluttered. Full of acorns and first kisses and thestrals and the sound of toddler feet.

He is watching his son dance with his granddaughter by the fire when it happens. The music stops and something inside Harry pangs. Everything feels funny, unreal. His magic cries out and then snaps back.

Ginny approaches, eyes swimming. She kneels and grips his arm. “Harry, oh…”

Harry’s gaze shutters. “What happened to her?”

“Stroke. She died an hour ago. Did you know she had a tumour on her brain?”

Harry shakes his head.

“Harry,” Ginny whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

Harry flies to Ireland the next day. Plenty come to shake his hand and say a few words about the woman who was married to her work. Then at the lowering of the casket, it is just him, Neville, and the pastor.

“She was extraordinary,” says Neville.

Harry bows his head. “She never told anyone she was sick. I should’ve known, I should’ve…”

Neville turns to him then, one hand on his cane. He looks surprised. “Would you have told anyone, ‘arry?”

Harry can’t reply. The pastor says a prayer. Then the two old men are alone. Harry’s throat is thick.

“I understand now,” says Neville. “She told me to give you this to honour the ‘waltz’ you two shared.”

Neville unfolds a piece of acrylic paper from his coat. Harry recognizes the portrait Luna had done with her thumbs, that night he ran to her studio. Except…

“It’s me!”

Neville smiles. “People always asked who the portrait was and whether it was for sale. She said it was reserved for someone when her dance was done.”

Harry takes his glasses off when they fog.

Luna’s thumbprints are visible on painted tear streaks. Where the tears land, lilies grow out of loamy soil. For Harry it is a mirror. At the bottom is a Bible verse: ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.’

The tears fall now. Neville thumps Harry on the back.

“That’s it, Harry. Let it out. She’s alright now, though I’ll miss her somethin’ terrible.”

Harry holds the portrait at arm’s length so he won’t get it wet.

“Me too, Neville. Me too.”

* * *

Unspoken, yet understood, is the fact that Harry’s health deteriorates several years later because when Luna died, she took a piece of Harry with her.

What _is _a surprise to everyone, however, is that Harry insists on his bed being moved to the garden in the woods. He makes provision for his children and grandchildren and a great grandchild on the way.

Surrounded by the throng of his family, Harry is grateful for peace. No menaces to fight, no violent ways to die. It is just him smiling, leaning back against the pillows. His family smiles back. He kisses Ginny’s hand around a rattling breath.

Then a new face floats into view by the arbor at the end of Harry’s bed.

Nobody else seems to see her, so Harry gets up and walks over.

“Come on, Harry!” says Luna. “You’re late!”

Harry bites his lip. “I don’t think I want to die.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

Harry glances back only to see himself, eyes closed, in the bed. His eyes widen.

“And death is easy,” Luna finishes, taking Harry’s hands. “It’s just another three step!”

So they dance.

**Author's Note:**

> Written May 2016.


End file.
